Grouping looks at pragmatic cross-border payment mechanism, local currency trade

Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal at the opening ceremony of the BRICS Business Forum in New Delhi, Friday. (PTI)

Ahead of the BRICS Leaders’ Summit, member countries have called for “pragmatic” and “efficient” cross-border payment mechanisms, including promotion of local currencies for trade and investments. Separately, Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal urged the bloc to link payment systems and trade in each other’s currencies.

Addressing the opening session of the BRICS Business Forum on Friday, Goyal spoke about India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI). “I would urge the BRICS member countries and partner countries to link our payment systems, trade in each other’s local currencies, make digital trade global and build together for the future emerging technologies,” he said.

Noting that there is “immense potential to deepen cooperation”, he said trade among partners should be deep and resilient with diversified supply chains, adding that it should not be an impediment to growth and the well-being of each member state.

Meanwhile, in a joint statement, finance ministers and central bank governors of the bloc called for “practical solutions for cross-border payments among BRICS countries”. The finance ministers and central bank governors met in Jaipur on August 12-13 and in Mumbai on Thursday.

“We acknowledge the work done to study the cross-border interoperability of payment and messaging channels, and the discussions on promoting trade settlements and investments using BRICS local currencies, while respecting national priorities and acknowledging that there is no one-size-fits-all approach,” said the joint statement.

“We encourage the BPTF (BRICS Payment Task Force) to continue discussions, building on the ongoing work, to facilitate practical solutions for cross-border payments among BRICS countries, which are fast, low-cost, more accessible, efficient, transparent and safe,” it said.

In August, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Sanjay Malhotra had said that BRICS members are discussing linking their fast payment systems and Central Bank Digital Currencies. He had said there is a lot of scope to reduce costs in making international payments.

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The focus on pushing local currencies and linking retail payment systems — UPI is used in about 10 countries at present — comes amid protracted talks between India and the United States over their trade deal. It has attracted the ire of US President Donald Trump, who has threatened to impose additional tariff on members of the bloc.

Trump views the grouping of the major emerging market economies as having been set up to “degenerate” and “destroy” the dollar “so that another country can take over and be the standard”.

“If we lost the world standard dollar, that would be like losing a war, a major world war. We would not be the same country any longer. We are not going to let that happen… The dollar is king. We are going to keep it that way,” Trump had said in July last year.

BRICS countries have maintained that they are not trying to replace the US dollar as a medium of exchange and only want to offer a “viable alternative that will aid the market in its perpetual mission for efficiency” and foster greater prosperity, promoting universally beneficial and inclusive economic globalisation.

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The US dollar is the most dominant currency for payment, trade and investment. Central banks around the world hold much of their foreign exchange reserves in assets denominated in the US currency. However, diversification towards other assets such as gold gathered steam in the wake of Ukraine being invaded in early 2022 and the US freezing Russia’s dollar assets.

In mid-2022, the RBI announced a framework to settle trade in the rupee. As per latest available data, 8.14% of India’s imports — amounting to Rs 1.58 lakh crore — were settled in rupees in the first three months of 2026-27. This is more than six times the Rs 25,402 crore of imports settled in rupees in April-June 2025. According to experts, the sharp jump in the use of rupees to pay for India’s imports has been to settle purchases of Russian oil.

Other BRICS countries like China have also been pushing their own currencies. But critics have pointed at the tiny share of the yuan in global payments.

Data from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) — the dominant messaging network which is used to initiate international payments — shows the yuan accounted for only 3.1% of global payments in July on the SWIFT platform. The US dollar, on the other hand, was on top with 50.99%. Other metrics put the dollar’s share in global forex volumes north of 80%.

Siddharth Upasani is a Deputy Associate Editor with The Indian Express. He reports primarily on data and the economy, looking for trends and changes in the former which paint a picture of the latter. Before The Indian Express, he worked at Moneycontrol and financial newswire Informist (previously called Cogencis). Outside of work, sports, fantasy football, and graphic novels keep him busy.   ... Read More